Sepp Blatter, president of the Federation International of
Football Association (FIFA), said yesterday in Leipzig, Germany,
that his executive committee had reached an agreement to make men's
soccer at the 2008
Beijing Olympics an under-23-only tournament, and to abolish
the previous rule allowing participation of three overaged
players.
An official announcement relating to age limit will be made
during the FIFA conference in June next year.
According to an article published by Sina.com today, FIFA's
reform would lower the age limit further to 20 after the 2008
Games.
The U-23 plus three overaged restriction first came into effect
at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics as FIFA's concession to the
International Olympic Committee, who had been striving to improve
the quality of Olympic soccer as well as to make it as prominent as
FIFA's milk cow, the World Cup tournament.
This time, Blatter is reportedly responding to complaints from
many European clubs that their players weren't able to rest to
prepare for domestic league matches and national team games. The
Olympics soccer tournaments begin at the same time as the European
league seasons.
European players would no longer burn out thanks to the new
decision and the move will help protect FIFA's World Cup
tournament, touted as the world's greatest single sporting event.
However, it also makes for less impressive Olympics soccer.
The absence of big names like David Beckham, Brazil's Ronaldo
and Roberto Carlos in Beijing in 2008 is sure to kill much of the
Olympics buzz, with possible knock-on effects like lower audience
and spectator numbers, less sponsorship, and general economic
losses for the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the
XXIX Olympiad (BOCOG).
As the Olympics host, China, who automatically qualify for the
tournament, will have to give up some bright players including
Zheng Zhi, Li Weifeng and Sun Jihai. But the China Football
Association (CFA) and Zhu Guanghu, head coach of the national team,
said FIFA's decision wouldn't adversely affect their plans for
2008.
"Zheng Zhi and Li Weifeng might not qualify for the games and
while that could affect our competitiveness, so do the other
countries. Some of their brightest stars won't be playing, which
could put us on an equal footing," Zhu said, as quoted by Titan
Sports yesterday.
Yang Yimin, vice president of the CFA, said the change could
actually work to China's advantage in terms of China's current
world ranking.
"Some of the younger players, those born in 1985 or later, are
actually more skilful to some players in the national team, as we
noticed at the Asian Youth Championship and World Youth Tournament.
We have reason to believe that we can achieve our goal of
last-eight or better in 2008," Yang said.
(China.org.cn by Li Xiao, December 9, 2005)
